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Thursday, 2 July 2015

Hi everyone! I have another event recap for you all today. I got to meet one of my favorite authors ever this past Monday... JUDY BLUME. Yes you heard that right, Judy-Blume!!! When the tickets went on sale at the beginning of June, I was so nervous I wouldn't be able to snag some, but I ended up getting online and getting two, one for me and my friend. It was such a terrific night!

It was a full house, packed with so many fans of Judy. The lovely girls at Random House Canada came around with #IHeartJudyBlume pins which were so cute and adorable!

Judy's talk was just wonderful. She talked about how she has been writing for 46 years now and this story of In The Unlikely Event, which she had put away, came to her all at once when she was at the Key West Literary Seminar to hear writers. A young writer was talking about her mother's life in the 50s and hearing those words "in the 50s" was when Judy realized that she had a story to tell.

Judy talked a lot about her experience as a child during this time (the time of the airplane crashes that are the focal point of In the Unlikely Event). This period was when the Cold War was going on and people were still trying to make sense of the Second World War and there was also the Korean war. The plane crashes were happening within a period of 58 days and when something like that happens, Judy mentions that as children, you try to come up with reasons, you don't simply want to think of it was a coincidence. Judy was asked if her experiences and writing about it, affected her wanting to fly and she mentioned that this happened when she was fourteen and she did not fly until she was seventeen and she "couldn't wait to fly."

The full author talk will be available on youtube online, but I just wanted to share some interesting snippets. Judy covered a wide range of topics, talking about parenting, genres, experiences, sexuality and more. It was such an educational moment!

When the time finally came to meet Judy, I was so nervous. It went really quickly, but I got to tell her how much I loved the book and a current paper idea that I have for the book. She was so sweet and lovely and her very kind husband also took some time to come around to the lines to speak to us all. They are seriously the cutest couple!

It was truly an evening that I will never forget. It was a childhood dream come true to meet Judy! <3